Numbers for alcohol? Carbs? Alcohol sugars?

[CrayonOfDoom2]

Well, I've been arguing with my friends these days about all the new low carb beers that are out. My stance has always been "if you're serious about dieting, better to just not drink." They keep saying, "hey man, it only has 2.4 carbs, 4 carbs, etc." so can anyone give me some accurate numbers or sites explaining how the body uses alcohol sugars, or just alcohol in general? I have difficulty believing that after a 2.4 carb beer, the only thing your body ends up utilizing or recognizing as calories/carbs is the 2.4 listed. Isn't that too good to be true??

Or are the effects of alcohol sugars or whatever they're called only applicable to a low carb diet?

 

[anthrax]

1g alcohol = 7 calories

1 g sugar alcohol = polyols = about 4 cal

and sugar alcohol have no relational with alcohol

 

[CrayonOfDoom2]

so if you are NOT on a low carb diet, and are not going over your carb and calorie intake, you could drink these beers without fear or hidden carbs/calories?
There are no hidden calories?

all I need to do is count the 2.4g of carbs and the 7 calories per g of alcohol??

 

[anthrax]

What are the ingredients ?

sometimes there are hidden carbs, like glycerol

Otherwise if you have 2.4g carbs + 5g alcohol

=> (2.4X4) + (5X7) = 45.8 calories

 

[Lao Tzu]

ethanol also inhibits fat oxidation.

http://www.bodybuilding.com/fun/md19.htm

http://www.thefactsaboutfitness.com/research/alcohol.htm

"Some evidence for this comes from research carried in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition [4]. Eight men were given two drinks of vodka and sugar-free lemonade separated by 30 minutes. Each drink contained just under 90 calories. Fat metabolism was measured before and after consumption of the drink. For several hours after drinking the vodka, whole body lipid oxidation (a measure of how much fat your body is burning) dropped by a massive 73%.

Rather than getting stored as fat, the main fate of alcohol is conversion into a substance called acetate. In fact, blood levels of acetate after drinking the vodka were 2.5 times higher than normal. And it appears this sharp rise in acetate puts the brakes on fat loss.

A car engine typically uses only one source of fuel. Your body, on the other hand, draws from a number of different energy sources, such as carbohydrate, fat, and protein. To a certain extent, the source of fuel your body uses is dictated by its availability.

In other words, your body tends to use whatever you feed it. Consequently, when acetate levels rise, your body simply burns more acetate, and less fat. In essence, acetate pushes fat to the back of the queue."

Thats probably true of most/all macronutrients though, the body will stop burning fat if it has alot of acetate, sugar or (exogenous) fatty acids to use for energy instead.

 

[Lao Tzu]

so if you are NOT on a low carb diet, and are not going over your carb and calorie intake, you could drink these beers without fear or hidden carbs/calories?
There are no hidden calories?

all I need to do is count the 2.4g of carbs and the 7 calories per g of alcohol??

i dont know. I dont think hard liquor or wine has any other calories. But mixed drinks and beer do. Beyond that i am not sure.

To calculate calories you need to do a multiple step math question.

1. Figure out how many ounces you drank
2. convert ounces to ml (1ounce = 30ml)
3. find the percentage of the alcohol.
4. multiply the ml you drank by percentage (if you had 10oz of 40% whiskey thats 300x0.40= 120ml)
5. multiply that number by the density of ethanol, 0.789g/ml (120x0.789=94.68g)
6. multiply that number by 7 to get your calories. (94.68x7)